The 76ers entered the offseason two months ago on Tuesday with more questions than remaining rostered players. To the jaundiced eye, Daryl Morey, the latest executive tasked with exiting the carousel of mediocrity that has spun for four decades without a championship, had little to anchor the era of Joel Embiid that is nearer its end than its beginning. But Monday, while the frenzy of free agency whirled around Camden, Morey rectified one of the most pernicious aspects of Sixers basketball for the last decade, replacing chaos with a bid for stability. For the next four years, at a reported cost of $212 million, Paul George will be a 76er. For the next five years, at a reported coast of $204 million, Tyrese Maxey will be a 76er. For at least the next two years, with a player option worth $59 million for a third, Embiid will be a 76er. At long last, the Sixers might have a core that can compete, that can stand each other and that can give the club the runway to end its interminable title drought. Trios remain the rage in the NBA, and the Sixers have swung and missed time and again in their attempts to assemble a competent one. Since Markelle Fultz was drafted, the dream scenario has been elusive or illusory. Each time it had to be rebuilt – with Jimmy Butler, with Ben Simmons, with James Harden, with the acceptance of promoting Tobias Harris as a would-be All-Star – the organization paid a chaos tax, of the Andre Drummonds and Robert Covingtons required to offload distressed (and distressing) assets. With it came a half-dozen remodels in the last half-decade, some versions of the teams lasting mere months. In the last, Morey’s return from the Los Angeles Clippers for Harden focused on future-facing assets, on draft picks and cap space for this summer, to mount a run at someone like George. He comes from the Clippers, where with teammates like Harden, Russell Westbrook and Kawhi Leonard only achieved a fourth seed in the West and an identical first-round exit as the Sixers. Now, the 76ers hope, they have that foundation, in three All-Stars. They have Embiid, who when healthy is one of the most transcendent scorers of his generation. They have an improving All-Star guard in Maxey with a magnetism tailor-made for this city. And they have the prototypical wing in George, who at 34 isn’t young but has a history of adapting to new systems, a 21.5 ppg. average in the postseason and the conspicuous absence of a NBA title on his resume that will define his career as much as the nine All-Star nods if not filled. Morey in May vowed he would build around Maxey and Embiid. He did that by concentrating his spending on George, one of the most sought-after free agents on the market for the win-now set. Harris is gone, as are Nic Batum and De’Anthony Melton. Kelly Oubre Jr. will be back, as will Drummond reportedly, plus the free-agent capture of Eric Gordon. Plenty more talents remain on the market at affordable prices. A supporting cast can’t be an afterthought, but when the 76ers in the past have attached even well-built ones to a rotting foundation, the results haven’t been as desired. Add in Paul Reed, a first-round talent in Jared McCain and it’s the start of something. No one’s stacking up the riot fences along Broad Street in anticipation yet, but also enough of a core as to not concern fans of the relative merits of PJ Tucker and Buddy Hield. Health is an issue, as for every team. (This is the point at which the camera pans to Embiid making a sitcom, “who me?” gesture.) George played 74 games last year, though it was his most since 77 with Oklahoma City in 2019. What Morey may have accomplished Monday is to turn time from a liability to an asset. Embiid’s body is a ticking clock. He played 433 regular-season games in his 20s. The chances of him playing that many in his 30s seem slim. His window has been slipping now for several seasons. It lowers with every passing day. Surrounding him with George and Maxey provides a core with, relatively speaking, time to grow, without the volatility of Harden or the fragility of Simmons, with a coach in Nick Nurse in his second season. Stability is an illusion in the NBA. All it takes is one unhappy superstar for it all to blow up, for one misplaced meniscus to undo the best-laid plans of mice, men and Moreys. But that dirty word of 76ers’ history – the Process – was all about another p-word: Probability. More losses meant better draft picks meant a better probability that they would develop into stars. Morey is following that logic now. More time together for more All-Stars means a better probability that something productive will come of it. Maybe, even a championship. Contact Matthew De George at mdegeorge@21st-centurymedia.com.